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The Empire of Mira
The Empire of Mira, also known as the Miran Empire, was the first and oldest civilization to rise out of the great continent of Nadroj. While the rest of the inhabitants of Nadroj were still either nomads or small tribesmen, the Mirans had already established a nation. It goes needless to say that their timeline stretched in the ancient times. However, to this day, this civilization still sees the light of the current era. History of the Miran Empire Humble Beginnings The Mirans originated in the island of Almiraclia (RW Sicily) meaning the "old land of the crucible". It was at this time these people were known as "Almirans", meaning "ancient Mirans". The very first Almiran settlement was established around five millennia before the first Miran conquest and was called the city of Almir. Nearly all of the inhabitants of Almiraclia traced their blood back to the first inhabitants of Almir. The ancient city of Almir sat beneath the shadow of Mount Aclia (RW Mount Etna). They had their humble beginnings as small farmers and hunters in the island. The Almirans lived a very simple agrarian life in the Almiraclian countryside for two millennia. Over the course of that time, their population grew, small towns and settlements dotted the island, and the city of Almir swelled so much in size that it had enveloped the revered Mount Aclia. Most structures in the city of Almir were primarily constructed out of stone, wood, pelt, and mud. Almiran technology only went as far as stone and flint at that time but nevertheless were very clever with it. However, such defining attributes of the Almirans would soon change. Wrath of Aclia Around 2,500 years after the city of Almir was founded, the once majestic Mount Aclia unleashed its vengeful fury. The mountain erupted with great force that trembles were felt all the way to the other side of Almiraclia. Hellfire rained down relentlessly on the vulnerable city in its shadow. The pyroclastic surges blew volcanic ashes through out the entire primitive city and disintegrated almost the entirety of its ancestral population. Nearly a third of the mountain was blown off, sending huge boulders of rock hurling down to destroy what was left standing. Needless to say say the city and the surrounding area was in smoldering ruins. The remaining population of Almiraclia was devastated by the significant loss. Out of the Ashes Nevertheless, the Almirans, united together by the catastrophe, grew resilient and persistent. Over the course of 500 years, all Almiran brothers and sisters made pilgrimage to the revered city and toiled to rebuild it beyond its former glory. In the site of the volcanic destruction, the Almirans made a significant discovery that would hold the key to Almiran dominance over Nadroj for the next several millennia. The rocks that blasted out of Mount Aclia contained high traces of iron. However, the massive heat and force generated by the volcano had created very strange yet abundant materials such as an iron-like material that is stronger and less prone to rust, volcanic ash that contained several elements, glassy black rock, and a mysterious yet beautiful "pure carbon" gem. At first, Almirans did not know what the materials were, more so what to do with it. When cleaning up the ruins of their ancestral homeland, a porter spilled several jugs of water onto a pile of a mixture of rocks, volcanic sand, and volcanic ash. Once it hardened, the Almirans had discovered "aclirete" (RW Roman concrete) and knew how the new city and all future cities must be built. When their primitive wood and stone tools would constantly break, the Almirans resorted to the metal they found, "aclium " they called it (RW steel). They knew the hot volcanic heat forged the metal into shape and thus simulated the process with big aclirete furnaces to forge new aclium tools that remain durable for a remarkably long time. After nearly a millennia straight of constant construction, the city of Almir was rebuilt anew, larger and stronger, with aclirete halls and palaces tempered with the fiery wrath of Aclia. All the while, the Almirans had done so likewise. Rise of the Mirans The Wrath of Aclia posed as a revelation for the Almirans. It brought upon plenty of discoveries that had resulted Almiran ingenuity to create more breakthroughs in architecture, agriculture, and alchemy, to name a few. It was when they rebuilt the city that they no longer called themselves "Almirans", the ancient primitive people that had used primitive tools. That they would be then referred to as the "Mirans". The Miran populated swelled in the coming light of their golden age. The success of the reconstruction gave the Mirans confidence to thrive and improve as, at that point, a civilization. "Our civilization was born in this land, it was never meant to die here," proclaimed the Almiraclian Mirans. Their eyes were definitely set for expansion, towards the land across the shining sea, the Nadroj mainland. After five thousand years had passed after Almir was first constructed, the Mirans constructed large barges to ferry soldiers, colonists, and supplies across the narrow channel that separates the island from the peninsula. This marked the beginning of the first Miran conquest. The First Miran Conquest In a few decades time, the Mirans had easily expanded the uninhabited territory up to the "ankle" of the boot-shaped peninsula. Several settlements were established in the seemingly uninhabited land. Each settlement either harvested trees, tilled the land, or dug beneath earth and rock in search of more materials to produce their aclirete and aclium. However, the Mirans were not alone in this new world of theirs when they met one of the fiercest of the Hundred Tribes. The Hundred Tribes were the indigenous peoples of the Southeast Nadroj mainland and as the name proclaims, there were exactly one hundred tribes scattered across the peninsula. At first, the naive Mirans tried to reason with the indigenous tribes of the land, however, the Tabernites, a warmongering tribe that had conquered 33 of the 100 tribes, were never willing to negotiate and saw the Mirans as a weak "child of a tribe". The Tabernites felt the glut of conquest and slaughtered the Miran farming village of Vindicta, thus starting the First Miran-Tabern War. At first the Mirans were undermanned with armed men, save for the settlement militias. Battle-hardened Tabernite warriors swiftly and easily raided and conquered Miran cities. In a matter of a few months the Mirans were forced back nearly to few miles of the shore of the channel. It was there that the remnants of the continental Miran militia stood relentlessly in the port town of Contega against the oncoming waves of Tabernite attacks. The Mirans stood until reinforcements from Almiraclia came. The soldiers from Almiraclia donned aclium armor and weapons and trained for monIn a few decades time, the Mirans had easily expanded the uninhabited territory up to the "ankle" of the boot-shaped peninsula. Several settlements were established in the seemingly uninhabited land. Each settlement either harvested trees, tilled the land, or dug beneath earth and rock in search of more materials to produce their aclirete and aclium. However, the Mirans were not alone in this new world of theirs when they met one of the fiercest of the Hundred Tribes. The Hundred Tribes were the indigenous peoples of the Southeast Nadroj mainland and as the name proclaims, there were exactly one hundred tribes scattered across the peninsula. At first, the naive Mirans tried to reason with the indigenous tribes of the land, however, the Tabernites, a warmongering tribe that had conquered 33 of the 100 tribes, were never willing to ths in the Miran capital since the start of the war, becoming more skilled and organized than the Miran militia. The Miran soldiers quickly learned the Tabernite fighting style and tactics and reclaimed lost Miran territory. The Mirans showed no mercy, remembering the atrocities at Vindicta; they committed atrocities, far worse that what the Tabernites did, to the Tabernites. Given a few years time, the Mirans reclaimed all of their lost territories, but their newly acquired taste for bloody conquest did not stop them from expanding ever farther into the tribal lands. After several years since the start of the Miran-Tabern War, the Mirans had conquered all 33 of the Tabernite tribes and their territory (most of central Italy). The Mirans were not very kind to the Tabernite tribals; they enslaved the ones they did not kill to labor camps to make up for the loss of progress that the war had caused. The Mirans used the ashes of conquered, slaughtered remains of the Tabernite tribals in substitute for volcanic ash needed to make acrilete, calling it "concrete" after their conquest. They usually fed the Tabernites the flesh of their own slaughtered tribesmen but spared the women to increase the Miran population. The Mirans adopted a new flag in the color of the blood of their enemies, crimson. The Miran military was forged into a professional war machine, organized yet fierce. With the combination of the workforce of enslaved tribesmen and the might of the Miran military, the empire seized to extend its powers further inland. Over the next few decades, the Mirans had dealt with 25 more of the Hundred Tribes, absorbing them into the empire by means of either peaceful submission or ravenous invasion. The Mirans had expanded their territory as far north as the foothills of the frozen Weir Mountains (RW Alps). The peaceful ones suffered far less consequences than the ones who resorted to violence. However, the remaining tribes had banded together and grew in strength to defend themselves against Miran conquest. Over the course of Miran expansion, the remaining 42 tribes formed the nation of Sesaria (located in RW Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, and Serbia). The vast differences of their culture were united under their hatred for the Miran Empire and the belief that the Mirans were an infestation in their land that needed to be eradicated. Thus the great Miran-Sesar War ensued when a Miran military unit seized control of a Sesarian town. The Mirans at first believed the war to be a short one as with the Tabernites once the Miran reinforcements came. However, the Mirans had mistaken the capabilities of the Sesarian nation; they were not the rag tag tribals the Tabernites were. Over the years, Miran technology and knowledge had leaked out to the tribes. The Sesarians adopted several tactics from the Mirans. They had developed a system of government with a king that the tribes hate the least. They proved to be a nearly even match against the Mirans. The two nations clashed for decades, both fighting for their own existence. In the early years of the war, the Sesarian population outnumbered the native Miran population nearly threefold. The Sesarians raised vast armies of unskilled and skilled warriors from the former tribes of Sesaria; many of the Sesarian warriors were simply farmers or nomads given a sword and shield. Nevertheless, they outnumbered the Miran soldier numbers two times, since the Tabernites were never conscripted to the professional ranks of a Miran soldier which only consisted of Miran citizens. In the early outset of the war, hordes of Sesarian warriors flooded into the newly acquired northern territories of the Miran Empire. Once the first wave of Sesarian soldiers occupied the northern Miran territories, the Mirans stormed up and blockaded the eastern narrow flat land between the Weir Mountains and the Ariman Sea (RW border between Italy and Slovenia) to cut and sabotage the Sesarian supply lines. Miran reinforcements had subdued the exhausted Sesarian Warriors and reclaimed the northern Miran territories. The front lines of the war had moved to the Miran blockade; the war had simmered down and turned into that of attrition after that. The Sesarians worked to raise another massive army to break through the blockade with brute force. Meanwhile, the Mirans sent agents to infiltrate the Sesarian nation to widen the divide between their numerous former tribal differences. With much success, Miran spies sparked internal divisions and unrest. Eventually, Sesaria fractured into seven different factions and did not take long for the Sesarian Civil Wars to erupt. The Mirans patiently waited and regained their strength until a winner seemed clear. Eventually, three of the seven factions formed an allegiance amongst themselves and signed an armistice with the Mirans until the end of the civil war. The Mirans then proposed a treaty with the three Sesarian factions that would let them gain Miran support in exchange for Miran governance after the civil war; the allied Sesarians agreed. In a matter of a few years, the joint forces defeated the insurgent Sesarians. The Mirans then spared the allied Sesarians and forced them to become part of their empire while the defeated insurgent Sesarians were enslaved. The Mirans had gained a foothold into the lands east of the Ariman Sea after capturing all of Sesaria and directed expansion towards further east. The Mirans sent nearly half of all their slaves to the Durian Mountains (RW Carpathian Mountains), an extremely iron rich mountain in the Miran frontiers. Although the Sesarians in general were not treated nearly half as bad as the Tabernites, the slaves sent to the Durian Mountains were forced to work the worst. Word of the Miran-Sesar War and the Sesarian Civil War spread like wildfire throughout the land. The Mirans had built a strong reputation of their power and their "join us or die" diplomacy. Such a reputation and the elimination of a major power in mainland Nadroj made expanding their territory faster and easier. Small tribes, settlements, nomads and nations that spattered the mainland of Nadroj tended to peacefully submit to Miran rule. The Mirans learned fast that allowing more people into their society benefited the growth of their civilization much better than simply enslaving them all. However, the Mirans continued to enslave the unruly and uncooperative as well as the kin of the Tabernites and Sesarians. Nevertheless, as their lands and influence grew, the Mirans also grew to be more tolerant and merciful. Over the course of a few centuries, the Mirans had expanded their territory with little to no resistance, eventually expanding to all of the mostly uninhabited east, west, and central Nadroj. In fact, the Miran Empire was indeed so expanse that they had to name subregions of land: Massinae Mira, the main peninsula of the empire, Secundae Mira, the lands east of the peninsula, Libirae Mira, the lands west of the peninsula, and Mildurae Mira, the lands north of the Weir Mountains. They established colonies all over their territory and built trade routes to connect them back to major Miran cities. The Mirans went into a golden age of growth and prosperity. Several cities were built to the same grandeur as Almir, such as Rumnus (RW Rome), the largest city in the mainland empire, among many more. With a vast empire to manage, the Mirans built several engineering wonders. They built roads to connect the cities in the Miran peninsula, elevated water channels (RW aqueducts) to provide fresh water to all the cities, a chain of walls and fortresses in mountains, plains, and sea channels to defend several key points in the Miran empire. Miran culture and influence spread all over the empire.They established a universal writing and numbering system throughout their empire and recorded their wisdom in stone tablets and aclium plates. This age of prosperity lasted a millennia; the might of the Miran Empire would soon meet its end. The Fall Seemingly all at once, the Miran Empire suffered catastrophe how ever it could be defined. Uprising, schism, invasion, drought, and plague hit the Miran Empire almost simultaneously. The Mirans had split their ideological virtues in two thus creating two factions in the empire. The Regnum Mirans grew popularity in Secundae Mira and upheld the staunch old Miran ideals of the conquest, acting immediately with brute force, and usually resolving problems with an aclium sword. The Destum Mirans grew support in a more civilized Massinae Mira and believed that the problems could be resolved with mercy, patience, and diplomacy; they believed that a pacifist Mira is the key to its survival. Before the catastrophes arose, the two debated on the most petty of all issues. Libirae Mira (Southwest Nadroj) was the main agricultural region of the empire. Most of the regions in the Miran empire depended on crops farmed by the Mirans in Libirae Mira. Due to the high demand of food for the ever growing empire, the Mirans tended to over farm the crops. Thus the topsoil became barren and loose, and coupled with dry seasons, it all resulted in droughts and dust storms in Libirae Mira. The Mirans there eventually abandoned the settlements and left them to be buried under the dust. This posed a major food crisis for all of Mira. The two factions clamored over who to blame. The Mirans proclaimed that Mildurae Mira was the "grand frontier" as it was the least and sparsely inhabited region in the empire. However, the population in that region were heavily concentrated in towns and cities. Supply routes were also sparse; therefore, the Mirans in Mildurae Mira were less up kept to the higher standards of Miran living and left with little aid when the plague struck there. The plague struck and spread fast but stopped at the Weir Mountains. The Regnum Mirans sought to quarantine them while the Destum Mirans wanted to provide them aid. However, with their stubbornness, the Destum Mirans kept in secret several supply routes that go towards the infected cities. Shortly after, the plague rampantly spread to the towns and villages bordering the two regions. This infuriated the Regnum Mirans and split off from the main Miran Empire, occupying Secundae Mira. Trying to avoid a civil war to erupt in a time of crisis, the Destum Mirans in Massinae Mira accepted the Regnum Miran's terms. Ultimately, the Mirans had come to a conclusion to quarantine them, closing off all routes to Mildurae Mira and leaving the small and expendable Miran population there to die off. The quarantine thwarted Miran attention to the lands surrounding Firus, inhabited by the Firusiae, thereby regarding it as a restricted and dangerous zone. The Regnum Mirans believed that they must carry on the "true spirit of Mira" that has been killed in Massinae Mira by the Destum Mirans that "grew soft" during the golden age. Category:All Pages